UPC-Marathon, a Nitrex company, installed an ExoFlex gas generator for Jomarca, a manufacturer of fasteners, bolts, nuts and fixing elements in Brazil. The generator will supply exothermic gas to a continuous wire annealing furnace, which is part of Jomarca’s efforts to meet market demand efficiently and sustainably for baling wire in the South American construction industry. The ExoFlex gas generator is the latest addition to Jomarca’s in-house heat-treating operations. The company now has the ability to produce exothermic gas on-demand with zero waste while also making more efficient use of electricity and gas feedstock.

Ipsen completed the installation of a vacuum furnace for Taiwan Hodaka Technology Co. Ltd., an aluminum extrusion supplier specializing in high-end aerospace aluminum alloys. The TurboTreater has a work zone size of 36 inches (914 mm) x 36 inches (914 mm) x 48 inches (1,219 mm) with a weight capacity of 3,000 pounds (1,360 kg) and a normal operating temperature up to 2400°F (1315°C). The furnace was designed with convection heating, which allows for more uniform processing of large cross-section parts and dense loads. It is also capable of quenching at up to 12-bar positive pressure in nitrogen.

Victaulic, a manufacturer of mechanical pipe-joining and fire-protection solutions, acquired Horizon Metals Inc. of Nephi, Utah. Horizon Metals is an iron and steel foundry that offers heat-treatment, induction-melting and mechanical-testing services. The acquisition increases Victaulic’s capacity for large-diameter piping solutions. With this acquisition, Victaulic has added over 1.4 million square feet of foundry and manufacturing capacity in North America since 2011. The Easton, Pa.-based company now has four foundries located in the United States.

Aero Space Power, a European MRO facility, ordered a custom-made vacuum furnace from SECO/WARWICK. The furnace, which has a work area measuring 1,300 x 1,000 x 1,500 mm (51 x 39 x 59 inches), will be used for repair solutions for both complex aircraft engines and gas turbines for the energy industry at a facility in Hungary. It is designed to process work in the presence of two gases: argon (used for partial pressure) and nitrogen (used mainly in the cooling process). The furnace will be equipped with a dew-point sensor for each of the gases. It also includes a partial-pressure control system based on three gases (hydrogen, argon and nitrogen) to help prevent evaporation and sublimation of alloying elements from the load surface during the vacuum heat-treatment process.

The Industrial Heating Equipment Association (IHEA) has been developing a variety of initiatives over the past six months relating to sustainability and decarbonization in the industrial heating equipment industry. The first initiative was to develop a “Sustainability” area on the IHEA website that features the foundation of information the industry needs.

Nucor placed orders with Sheffield Forgemasters for ultra-large steel rolls for its new plate rolling mill. Sheffield Forgemasters will deliver three rolls weighing 147 metric tons each to Nucor’s Brandenburg Mill near Louisville, Ky., an advanced steel plate mill with the ability to produce 1.2 million tons annually.

Jiuli, headquartered in China, awarded SMS group the final acceptance certificate for putting a fully automated forging line into operation. The hydraulic radial forging machine has a press force of 18 MN for each of the four press cylinders, which allows sophisticated materials for the aerospace industry to be forged. In addition, the plant includes two fully synchronized 8-ton forging manipulators and equipment for loading and unloading as well as for cutting, marking and cooling of forged bars. To achieve high process-efficiency levels while at the same time observing the technological parameters required for forging high-temperature materials, the handling manipulators used for automated unloading of heated ingots from the furnace are integrated into the line control system.

Industrial Heating is fortunate enough to have several experts in their respective fields contribute editorial pieces on a regular basis. These experts – David Pye, Debbie Aliya, Dan Kay and Reed Miller – all have a vast amount of experience in the thermal-processing industry. As such, their blogs and columns provide helpful and timely information about heat treatment to our readership.

The SECO/WARWICK Group will deliver two universal batch CAB furnaces and a CAB continuous line to Australia’s PWR Advanced Cooling Technology. The furnaces will be used for brazing aluminum heat exchangers. The three solutions on order will go to two continents, Australia and North America, both owned and operated by PWR Advanced Cooling Technology, which specializes in the production of heat exchangers. The current contract is the third purchase of technologies from SECO/WARWICK designed to meet the production challenges related to the brazing process.

L&L Special Furnace designed and built a heated-oil quench tank that will be used by a company for quenching various styles of heat-treated tools used in the forging industry. The tools are heat treated in a furnace to required hardness and then quenched in oil to set hardness. The quench tank holds 65 gallons of oil and is ideal for quenching parts 50-75 pounds. The quench-tank oil is agitated by an impeller with an explosion-proof motor and is heated with a 4.5-kW immersion heater to maintain the oil at a slightly elevated temperature to help eliminate oil flashing and fire potential. There is also a safety lid with fusible links that closes automatically if the fusible links melt, dropping the lid and blocking exposure of the surface of the oil to air to prevent a potential fire.